Speaking To Your Audience – A Branding Agency

Once a client has been on-boarded our branding agency will enter the ‘discovery phase‘ of research. The discovery phase is sometimes referred to as the most important – as this is potentially the only opportunity you are given to really dive into the target demographic. In short the discovery phase consists of:

Defining your target market through a unique value proposition

Constructing personas based on previous data

Choosing how the brand voice should be presented

Unique Value Proposition

A Unique Value Proposition is defined as a written statement that defines what you offer,that is better than your competition, that can answer to the customers needs. This statement should outline what the customer is thinking while they are reacting with your product or service. In addition, the written plot needs to be in the language of your target customer. So before you put pen to paper you need to decipher who you target customer is, and what attributes you can play to as a marketer.

Constructing Personas

Customer personas are fictional characters that you make up that exemplify your target consumers. These attributes and interests can be extracted from Google Analytics, Facebook/Twitter Insights, your business’s Customer Relationship Management Software, on-site interviews/questionnaires and many other outlets your target comes into contact with. The goal is to get insider details on your current customers – and further be able to put them into persona groups. The following are some questions that can get you started in determining persona groups:

Age: Marital status? Children living in the home? The current state of residency? Do you have any pets in the home?

Occupation: What is your occupation & job title? What industry or industry do you work in? What is a typical day at work or home? What education was required for your occupation?

Shopping Preferences: How to you prefer to purchase online or in-store? Do you use the internet to research products? Do you search for information using Google or Bing? What types of websites do you use? What social media platforms do you use? What platform do you source company reviews?

Likes & Dislikes: What magazines do you read? What are your favorite hobbies/activities? What are your favorite television channels? What type of car(s) do you drive? What is your favorite big-box store? What are your favorite brands?

Pains & Gains: What are some gains that you would like to achieve through the purchase process? Are there any social gains you would like to get out of this product? What are some pains that annoy you through the purchase process? What are some potential roadblocks to getting the purchasing job done? What tasks do you need to complete before, during and after you use my product or services? In what ways can my product alleviate pain during your customer journey? What social, or emotional outcomes would go above and beyond my typical product or service?

All of these attributes will bring you closer to truly understanding your target audience. Once you compile all of the answers you can start to group common trends together and assign ‘fictional names’ and ‘fictional photos’ of each of your target clientele. This will help you effectively write ad text, and creative according to whom exactly you are marketing to. Don’t fall short in this area of your business, get your entire team on board with these personas and expect extremely penetrated campaign margins.

Branded Voice

Lastly, you will need to determine what branding agency voice your company will take. Given all the research performed above you should have a really clear idea of how your voice should be defined. Voice guidelines are great to hand your creative department and social media managers to use as guidelines to produce content. A generic example is listed below. We see strategically this demographic relies heavily on truth and fact-based language and looks down upon sarcastic, opinion-based knowledge. These are great to whiteboard and brainstorm with your team using historical fact-based ideas.

Getting to know your demographic and what drives them is the key to successful marketing. Don’t make the mistake of producing content before you accurately define whom you are producing content for. You will be politely surprised by the engagement and ROI opportunities that will present once you correctly define your target. This is just one of the many steps we will define once we are the branding agency on your account.

If you’d like to create a unified brand voice in your digital marketing, please reach out to us – We would love to provide a free consultation!